Could our favorite forums list be alphabetical please?

When I was just watching a few forums, it was useful to have watched/favorite forum pop to the top of the list when there was new activity in it. But now my list of favorite forums is getting long. And every time I go to my home page, my favorite forums are in a different order, making it hard for me to quickly find the one I want to click on.

Could we have a "preference" option of having our favorite forums listed alphabetically on our home page?

Having my "favorite forums" list essentially randomized throws me off. I don't go to my home page thinking, "I wonder which of my favorite forums have new posts?" because almost all of them have new posts within the past few minutes. Usually, I scroll down the forum list thinking, "I think I'll see what's new in the African Violet forum," and then I have to search up and down a couple of times before I spot the forum title in the list so I can click on it.

I know I could just start jumping to my favorite forums from the communities / discussion forums page rather than from my home page... but the listing of all the forums has become so huge that I'm not sure that would end up being time saving, either.

Does anybody else think this would be helpful?

Thanks!

I think this is a great idea!!!!!

Ditto! I am an alphabetical type person ... I like order! LOL.

I'm into this.

Please daaaaaaaaaaaaave!

I would like it.

Great idea!!

I'd find an alphabetical listing of watched forums useful.

But PLEASE do not start alphabetizing my updated threads. ;-)


June

One thing to consider, with the new "new threads", you may be able to pare down your list of "watched" forums since you can keep tabs on new activity across the site.

Thanks for the reminder, Terry. There are a few instances where I've
had to "watch" an entire forum such as Parking Lot because the posters
continue a long thread on with a different title. Usually there are only a
few threads in there that I have time to follow.

June

Personally I'd like the forums to show up in the order they do now--I'm definitely not against offering alphabetical as an option for people who want it that way, but I would want to have a choice to still view them the way they are now.

ecrane, it makes sense to me to offer it as a preference option... that way, anybody who wants their forum list to work as it does now can just keep it as is. I don't see Dave just changing it for everybody rather than offering it as an option.

If I can alphabetize my favorite forums list, I'll probably add to it... the main reason I'm not watching more forums now is that I have a hard enough time finding the one I want on the list without making the list longer. :-)

I have a hard time finding things in the favorites list too, because the order keeps changing. Rather than alphabetize favorites, I wish there were a way to put them in any order we set up. So you could give each a priority of where to fall in the list by setting a preference on the favorites preferences page. My favorite forum is Pets, followed by Ohio River Valley then Daylilies and Perennials. I would love it if when I went to "Home" Pets would always be first, then ORV, then Daylilies etc., even if no new posts have been made. You can always tell by the color if a new post has been made. If alphabetizing were available, I wouldn't use it, as many of my favorites would be way down the list. But, when I go to the regular page that lists all the forums, under the Communities section, ORV is way, way down at the bottom of the list, as is Jokes and Humor, Recipes and Perennials. I often access Dave's with my iPhone, and it is a long way down and a long wait with the iPhone to reach those forums going that route, so I usually try using the favorites page. I try to "watch" the ongoing threads, which will bring it to the top of the "Home" tab if there has been a new post.. but sometimes an old thread has been closed and a new one started, so it can be a long wait and scroll... I am probably the only person who has an iPhone with several shortcuts on my Home screen to Dave's forums because it is such a long scroll down the forum pages, or the favorites page to actually reach my favorite forums. Who needs Stocks and Google, I need Pets and ORV! I would love to be able to get to my 4 or 5 favorites easily, from near the top of the favorites page!

I figured as long as a forum was in a predictable location it would be easier to find, whether it was near the top or the bottom of an alphabetical list... but I hadn't considered the challenges faced by anybody trying to access DG via iPhone!

Giving every forum its own priority number might be more challenging, in terms of programming the option interface... I'm not sure. But I do like the idea, because it would let me sort my favorite forums into categories (which would probably only make sense to me... like the way my CDs are organized by the stereo only makes sense to me LOL).

Critter, I know exactly what you mean by the CD's only making sense to you! LOL

I was thinking about the way Dave has it set up for us to customize our home page. You know how you can go to My Tools/Preferences/Customize HomePage and you can choose what has priority to be at the top of the page by choosing what column and position an item has. That is what I had in mind for the Favorites.

Probably not possible, but we can dream right?

I know it boils down to the fact that there are to many forums that I like to read, and I keep them all in the favorites - when perhaps I really should only keep the top 5 there. LOLOL Maybe there should be a favorites and a "favorite favorites." or a section at the top of favorites to put the top 5 right under your watched threads.

There are several people where I work with iPhones, but also Blackberries and other "smart phones." There are many websites that are coming up with stripped down "easy load" pages for mobile phones now, that make accessing pages faster. If I am somewhere that I can access wi-fi my phone is nearly as fast as my high speed internet, but it's rare for me to be around wi-fi. Otherwise, it's like having slow dial up. It does give me a way to access Dave's when I am away from home - and Dave's is my favorite site on the web....

I'm with Ecrane.I like the chronological order they are in now,but I can see where some might like things alphabetically.As long as it is a preference option,I'm not against it.

I will side with the one that supplies the whiskey lol

lol eweed I like that decision... :o)

but, I too would like a way to organize them...either having the option of prioritizing them in my list so they stay put, or alphabetical....either way works for me :o)

I'm easy! lol! (just dont tell my DH!)

Alphabetizing "Watched Forums" might be useful to some,
but like Ecrane and others, I always prefer a choice to enable/disable
features.

We have just a handful of people here requesting feature changes,
but we have 7,428 paid subscribers, most of whom are not even
aware of this discussion and who may have different ideas or
input.

I wonder if Dave might consider polling a broader scope of members
as to what feature changes would or would not be useful as the DG
web site grows and membership expands.

And when a feature is added such as the new "Latest Threads," is it
announced somewhere so that all subscribers become aware of it
and know it can be enabled/disabled?

Just some thoughts I wanted to put out there.

I asked Dave on the other thread if it was possible to announce the new "latest threads" feature as a "news from Dave" item... I think that would be a great idea when there's a change like this! It would have been very easy for me to miss, and I'm loving it!

ok...what's the "latest threads" feature?

oh - and I would love the ability to choose the order of watched forums too :)

SongsofJoy - It's like the "Latest Posts", but where that shows the most recent posts this only shows which threads were most recently started. If you want it go to "My Tools", "Preferences", "Customize HomePage" and find "Latest Threads" it will be disabled at the moment, decide what position you want it in and put that in the box next to it.

Thanks!

The Bloom.com Photos are annoying. I don't mind the BF photos so much, but wouldn't miss them either.

Ummm, there's no bloom.com photo on your home page (I don't think that's an option.)

You *do* have the option of showing (or not) a random photo, which changes frequently throughout the day.

I think we're talking about the bloom.com photos that were hogging spots on the "latest threads" list, the way PF photos were until Dave blocked them. Maybe bloom.com pictures and BF pictures could be similarly blocked? :-)

I must have this stuff disabled already,lol.

I like the alpha option also.

Has anyone mentioned you can use the Control "f" function on your keyboard to find a particular forum right off?

I can scan up and down the list for the name nearly as quickly as I can do "find on this page" and type in the forum name, although I do resort to that at times. Alphabetical would just be so much better, I think!

...or pare down your list to your really really favorite forums ;o)

My list *is* pared down! If it wouldn't make it too unwieldy, I'd probably add another dozen forums that I drop in on occasionally so I'd remember to stop by more often. I have a lot of different interests, which is one of the reasons I've objected to some of the proliferation and splitting of forums that's happened in the last couple of years... finding topics that interest me was easier when those topics occupied fewer, more active forums.

Being able to list my favorites alphabetically would help me navigate the site more easily.

I have to agree on that point. There are too many unnecessary forums that have little activity since they were split/set up.

What about the option of clicking on the field name and sorting by that? Default would still be the "Last Post" but if you clicked on "Message Board" then that would be sorted first. If you clicked on "New?" then it would be sorted first and then perhaps the "Last Post" would be the second sort. Similarly for "Who".

That's an interesting idea, but it would still scramble the forums in a different order each time I looked or clicked, wouldn't it? I'd like to be able to find forums at a known place on my list.

Hopefully it would remember what you clicked on last. Possibly add a marker to let you know which one was clicked on last like Excel.

Just my two cents, but I like having them roll up when there's new activity. That way I don't have to scroll all the way to the bottom of the list to check on a forum to see if there's new stuff to read, it comes to the top for me to notice. If they were alphabetical, then I would have to always be on my toes to figure out where the new posts are.

When did JoanJ drop the J? I didn't "recognize" her Jo

You're the first one to notice Jo! The J on the end disappeared last fall sometime. :)

I'm with Joan, I prefer seeing things in order of where the most recent posts are, so if any changes are made I'd like to see it as an option that people can choose how they want things displayed.